


The False Prophecy

by LiinHaglund



Series: The Orphans Who Ruled The World [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon? What Canon?, Canonical Character Death, Female Harry Potter, Gen, Misogyny, No Horcruxes, Prophecy, Rewrite, Sane Voldemort, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8185132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiinHaglund/pseuds/LiinHaglund
Summary: The prophecy is fake, You-Know-Who isn't crazy (or as dumb as a bag of bricks) and no one is innocent. Prologue to "The Orphans Who Ruled The World" series.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The rating will go up later in the series. Things will get nasty. You were warned.

****Many prophecies had spoken of a powerful child, one who could rival The Dark Lord's own power.

The Dark Lord, however, was not the fool he was often made out to be. He didn't much believe in prophecies, but he was not above using them for his own means. After all, if a false prophecy seemingly came true, then the one who made it true would control faith.

As it was the Light – and wasn't that an ironic name when they had slain the priestesses of the old religion just a month ago – controlled everything from the media to the Ministry. It wasn't possible to win the open fight that raged right now. The war could still be won, but the battle was lost if he wanted to control the public like he intended.

Only a stupid person would leave the world in ruins if he planned to live in it.

The prophecy would help him win the war, in due time.

A prophecy could give hope, but it could also crush it.

 

* * *

 

James Potter was not, by any means, fond of the Longbottoms. Oh, they were certainly a respectable enough family, but two duller people than Frank and Alice were not to be found outside a library.

It was nice for Lily to have people around her, another new mother who she could lament to and giggle with, and it was only temporary. Frank and Alice were currently out to buy groceries. Boring though they were, at least he and Lily could have some nights to themselves with live-in babysitters.

“Hold her for a bit, poor Neville seems to have gotten a stomach ache,” Lily said, holding out Mary.

James dutifully accepted the toddler while Lily went to soothe Neville. He paced back and forth in case she would start crying too. She rarely did. She was an easy child, had slept through the night since they brought her home from the hospital after Lily's sixteen hour birth.

“I think he's just fussy,” James told Mary.

“Ussy,” she echoed around her thumb, which was more often than not stuck in her mouth. At one she could walk, not quite talk but she was getting there, and had done a bit of accidental magic. Alice had stopped nursing Neville as soon as he turned one, but Lily wanted to nurse for as long as she could.

As far as gifts went, their child was one of the better ones he had gotten.

“It's almost bedtime,” James noted, as if the slow blinking of his tired child was not enough indication.

She babbled – something that could have been a sentence composed of nonsense.

 

* * *

 

“Are they asleep?” Alice asked when she and Frank arrived, burdened with bags from the store. James had never gotten the hang of muggles and their odd way of life, but they were much safer hiding in the muggle world.

“For now, Neville took forever to settle,” Lily answered.

“Want to trade?” Alice joked, as she often did.

“Not for the world,” Lily answered, like always.

“How was the movie?” James asked. If there was one muggle thing he did enjoy, it was the cinema.

“Good,” Frank answered. “We had popcorn!”

“It really was good, you have to catch it,” Alice said with a content sigh.

In the nursery Mary suddenly laughed.

They all turned to look at the slightly ajar door, but as long as Neville wasn't screaming whatever Mary was up to was usually not cause for concern.

A soft thump made James sigh in fond exasperation – that girl was a worse escape artist than he had been. Sure enough, the door soon creaked open.

But it wasn't Mary in the door opening.

 

* * *

 

When Death Eaters unexpectedly – or as unexpected as an expected enemy could be during a raging war – hunted the Potters and the Longbottoms down they met with little resistance. The wail of a young child made the Dark Lord step away and walk on silent feet to the nursery. He had an idea of how to make this seem like something it was not. Of how to retreat, gather more troops abroad, and make that prophecy seem true, all in one move.

“Bring the women here,” he ordered. The house had gone silent and he knew without asking that the women were dead, along with the two men. He did not surround himself with idiots. “Put one of them in front of the crib, as if she was protecting them. The other by the door.”

Dumbledore always did like his prophecies, he would swallow the lie eagerly. It was believable even to people who did not believe in the drivel Dumbledore lived by.

Using his wand he burned a mark in the shape of a V in the middle of the wailing boy's forehead. It made him scream all the more.

“Very dramatic,” Bella commented, unimpressed, the other child held on her hip.

“Give me the girl.”

Bella gave him a scathing look. “The prophecy spoke of a boy.”

“Having children has made you soft,” he said. “Give me the girl. The pain won't last.”

 

* * *

 

The little girl and the little boy were found a day later by friends who had come to check in on the two young families. The Dark Lord had disappeared without a trace by then and his Death Eaters had scattered to the wind. On his orders, but the Light did not know this, they assumed he had been defeated by a mere infant.

The War was declared won.

The world was deemed safe again.

Neville Longbottom was celebrated as the one who had vanquished the Dark Lord. The boy's grandmother took him in, and The Boy Who Lived wanted for nothing, save perhaps for someone to pull his head down from the clouds.

Nobody thought it could have happened differently. The Dark Lord was gone, surely this meant that he had been defeated, and it just had to have been Neville who had done it. A little _girl_ could never have defeated one of the most powerful wizards of all time, not when all prophecies spoke of a boy. A meek baby girl born by a mudblood woman surely had no role to play in the event.

She, having no relatives who wanted her, was placed in a muggle orphanage. She would be fine, the Light side reasoned, she had an inheritance awaiting her when she was older and would eventually be going to the same school as her parents. Muggles raised orphans all the time.

But prophecies, while often not completely reliable, can sometimes turn out to have a grain of truth.

 

 


End file.
